12 August, 2017

It appears
that the brave Portugal defied the recipe of austerity and
sado-monetarism imposed by the Troika of destruction (IMF, ECB,
European Commission) that ruined the Greek economy after seven years
of savage implementation.

In 2016,
according to figures released on March 24th, his government cut the
budget deficit by more than half to just under 2.1% of GDP (see
chart), the lowest since Portugal’s transition to democracy in
1974. His administration restored state pensions, wages and working
hours to pre-bail-out levels, and also brought the deficit well under
the 2.5% target set for it by the European Union. It is the first
time that Portugal has complied with the euro zone’s fiscal rules.

Furthermore,
the Portuguese government has just decided even to increase slightly
the low pensions. As The
Portugal News reports:

An
extraordinary increase in payments to retired people in Portugal with
monthly pensions of less than €631.98 began to be implemented on
Thursday, with those pensioners who saw no increase at all in their
pensions between 2011 and 2015 to receive as much as €10 more from
now on.

Antonio
Costa and his government formed by the forces of the Left, have
chosen to fight against Brussels/Berlin pressure to implement the
neoliberal recipe that destroyed Greece.

But it seems
that he managed also to put the Brussels bureaufascists and the
German sado-monetarists in difficult position, as his administration
managed to achieve the deficit target imposed by the European
Financial Dictatorship, while restoring pensions
and wages.

On the
contrary, under Troika's pressure, the Leftist government in Greece
has chosen to retreat further against absurd demands that include
further cuts in pensions during the next two years, which Tsipras and
his administration have committed to implement in advance.
Implementing such measures for seven years, Greece has seen its
economy ruined by the brutality of the neoliberal priesthood.

It is
certain that the neoliberal sadists will be very upset right now, as
Portugal can become an example inside the eurozone and, therefore,
ruin their plans to expand the Greek experiment throughout the
member-states.

Currently,
Portugal is able to borrow money at low interest rate from money
markets and, therefore, it is quite independent from the ECB
liquidity, unlike Greece. We should not be surprised if we see a
sudden crisis storming against the country, say the next few months.
Portugal will be excluded from the markets. The ECB will come to
provide liquidity under cruel conditions. Portugal will be forced to
walk the hellish Greek path or face a sudden death through a
financial coup by the ECB as happened in previous years with Ireland,
Italy
and Cyprus.

Recall
that, the ECB finally forced to expose its real role through an open
financial coup
this time, against Greece, when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras,
decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed
by the ECB, IMF and the European Commission, through which the Greek
people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of
terror inside and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario
Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking
Greece into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat,
signing another catastrophic memorandum.

So, will Portugal continue to
resist bravely in case we see a similar scenario? It would be
difficult to do it alone. Someone has to coordinate the efforts of
the European south towards the resistance against the Brussels-Berlin
axis. Then, Europe could change course, away from the neoliberal
policies of destruction.